


How Everyone Found Out

by ladygray99



Series: Vignettes [7]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-07
Updated: 2010-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygray99/pseuds/ladygray99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colby finds out just how his little secret got out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Everyone Found Out

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Vignettes 'verse after Receptions for Colby

Colby sat in the passenger’s seat of the FBI sedan and rolled his ankle around.

“If we’ve got to chase these guys is your leg going to hold up?” David asked.

“It’ll be fine. I’ve been doing sprints just to make sure.”

“Good to have you back out here.”

“One more day chained to that desk and I was going to shoot someone just for the excitement.”

“Cut yourself a little slack. You were shot.”

Colby shrugged. “Only a little.”

“Four times is a little?”

“Well that weapon held 30 rounds, 4 times is only 13 percent of the maximum potential and the jacket caught 3 so really were only talking about 3.3%.”

David nodded slowly. “So you’ve moved in with Charlie?”

Colby winced a little. “Yeah, does it show?”

“When you start babbling math like that it does.” David said with a laugh.

Colby groaned “Just don’t get me started on the Riemann hypothesis. I spent three hours last night listening to Charlie and Larry talk around in circles on that one. And Larry’s math isn’t actually quite good enough to argue any of his points so he was trying to make prime numbers a metaphysical thing, which I guess they kinda are but the Clay Institute isn’t going to accept any answer that isn’t pure math, and Charlie being Charlie wants to skip any other millennium prize and just work on P vs NP which is all well and good except it’s unsolvable and eats everything else in his brain for months on end.”

David nodded carefully looking like he would back slowly away if he wasn’t stuck in a car with Colby. “So you’ve moved in with Charlie?” He said again.

Colby put his head in his hand and sighed. “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry.” David said brightly. “It’s a good thing. You two have been sneaking around way too long, and after what happened at the hospital there’s no point now.”

Colby sat up. “Wait, what happened at the hospital?”

“When you were shot and the doctor wouldn’t let anyone in to see you?”

“Don said Charlie almost hit a guy but...”

“Oh.” David said with a bright smile. “Oh, no one told you the whole story.”

“Do I want to know?” Colby asked with more than a little trepidation.

“Oh yes,” David had a big grin. “So here’s this scrubby little doctor standing in the middle of the hall telling us family only gets to visit. Now mind you there’s a good fifteen of us there, we’re all still in tac gear, we’re all armed. Don looks about ready to draw down on this guy when Charlie pushes through the lot of us, grabs this guy, shoves him against the wall, and says, and let me quote this because I will remember this to my dying day ‘I’m his god damn lover and if I don’t see him in the next thirty seconds I will have the NSA so far up your ass you’ll need a proctologist to work out where your civil liberties went.’”

“Oh no way.” Colby said sinking his face into his hands again.

“Swear to god. We were thinking of having it printed up on t-shirts. Well everyone’s jaw just drops, except for Don who’s standing there looking like a proud father. You know? ‘Today he is a man.’ This doc looks about ready to shit himself and just points down the hall to your room. Charlie drops him and just marches off and Don just points at Charlie and goes ‘We’re with him.’”

Colby squeezed his eyes shut. “So everyone knows?”

“Well we all kinda figured before that, but that was what sealed it.”

Colby groaned. “What do you mean everyone kinda figured before. We’ve been, well we’ve been damn discreet.”

“You couldn’t have been that discreet what with Amita finding out and all.”

“What!”

“That’s why she left right? Found out about you and Charlie.”

“No! Where the hell did you hear that?”

“We’ll that’s what everyone was saying.”

Colby’s jaw dropped open. “Charlie and I weren’t even...Amita left ‘cause some shit went down back in India and she ended up agreeing to some arranged marriage.”

“Really? Everyone figured she walked in on you two or something and skipped town.”

Colby blinked a few times trying to processes the absurdity of the FBI rumor mill. “I don’t know who should be more offended, me or Charlie. He was going to propose to her.”

“Oh. Shit, sorry.” David actually managed to look a little guilty.

“People thought Charlie and I were together then?”

“You taught him how to shoot, that’s like third date thing.”

“I taught him how to shoot ‘cause he’s surrounded by guns and should know how to use one and Don wasn’t going to do it.”

“We all thought Don went off at you ‘cause he found out about you two.”

Colby rubbed his temples. “Don went off at me ‘cause he didn’t think his baby brother should be handling guns. And when he did find out about the other thing he was actually really cool about it.”

David’s eyebrows came together in hard thought. “So wait, that entire year when you never looked more than twice at any given girl and actually went to Charlie’s Math for Dummies lectures, that was just a friend thing?”

“Yes!” Colby snapped felling a little annoyed that everyone had assumed he and Charlie were going at it and no one had told him.

“So when _did_ you guys get together?” David asked with honest confusion.

“After the Mainer case.” Colby said quietly.

David shivered just at the name. “Shit. That late? Man someone’s lost money.” Colby snorted.

“Hold on. If everyone thinks Charlie and I have been going at it for ages, how come no one’s given me shit about it? I mean this is the Bureau?”

“Are you nuts?” David said. “With Charlie’s security clearance and connections, everyone figures first person to piss you two off is getting transferred to Anchorage. You could make out in the middle of the office and the only one who’d say a word is Don and that would be ‘get a room’.”

“Oh. Well that’s good to know.” Colby thought about how he might put that bit of info to use.

“So,” David asked slowly now that the topic had been thoroughly breached. “How are things going with you and your sweetie?”

“Sweetie?”

“Sugar pie, honey bun, little angel?”

Colby snorted. “No cute pet names, thank you. I’m Colby, he’s Charlie, it’s just a thing, and that’s that. Little Angel? That would be false advertising.”

David raised an eyebrow. “Really, little innocent Dr. Eppes not so innocent?”

Colby raised his hands. “I will say nothing without a lawyer present.”

“Really? So the good doctor has got you in your own handcuffs then?”

“What!?”

“Or the other way around.”

“Where the hell are you getting that!? Doesn’t the rumour mill have anything better to speculate on than my sex life?”

“Nope. I mean we’d talk about Don’s if he had one. Oh and if it looks like you might be heading to a break up give me a sign, I’ll split the winnings with you.”

Colby opened his mouth to say something that would probably get him hit when two suspects came out of the side door of the house they’d been watching.

“Here we go.” David said. David and Colby got out of the car. “FBI, we’d like to talk.” The two suspects turned and sprinted away.

“They always got to run.” Colby said as he began to sprint after them.


End file.
